Anyone watching and trying to understand last Sunday’s Q&A where Jack Tame interviewed Debbie Ngarewa-Packer will realise that she seems to be beyond reason. Tame tried to examine bits of her blather and her obvious misuse of words, but she immediately slithered like an eel under a rock and made louder assertions about how Maori “korero” and “kaupapa” justified her allegations of “genocide” being perpetrated by a “white supremacist” government against Maori. Along the way, her most significant assertion was that Maori had never ceded sovereignty to the Crown, despite what the Treaty of Waitangi actually says. Therefore, in her eyes, any claims Maori like to produce must be treated seriously. Amazing stuff really. The meaning of words that the rest of us use is irrelevant to her. Clearly, she makes up the “korero” and the “kaupapa” as she goes along. For Ngarewa-Packer and her handful of followers her “korero” has no universally accepted meaning. It can be translated any way they like, whenever they feel an urge to do so. 

This lack of respect for the meaning of words is why Maori radicals are terrified of David Seymour’s promise to identify, and put into law, the principles of the Treaty. To do so would threaten their growing practice of making up new “principles of the Treaty” when it suits them. The reality is, they have no respect for the wording of the document that their ancestors signed on 6 February 1840. 

Let’s examine the Treaty: Article One translated into English by Sir Hugh Kawharu from the Maori version of the Treaty that Ngarewa-Packer’s ancestors signed, says that the Chiefs “give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land”. No leeway there for anyone in the Maori Party to argue that they didn’t cede sovereignty, however hard they might try. 

There is more scope for debate over Article Two that gave the Chiefs and Subtribes “the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures” even though the Chiefs accepted they would sell land to the Crown at an agreed price. Most reasonable people agree now that governments after 1840 weren’t always as careful as they should have been at respecting that chieftainship. That’s why so much effort has been made this last half century to settle Maori grievances: billions of dollars paid, the transfer of thousands of acres of land, and a great many state-funded Maori agencies to help improve Maori health and educational outcomes.

In many ways the most significant piece of the Treaty that Ngarewa-Packer and her ilk keep trying to rewrite is Article Three. In it, the Queen of England promised to protect all Maori and “give them the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England.” Ngarewa-Packer seems to interpret this as meaning that the Crown signed up to pampering Maori, guaranteeing them, irrespective of how they behaved, that they would live as long as non-Maori, enjoy the same standards of living, and not have any obligation to work. Just please themselves. She constantly stresses Maori rights; never mentions any duties of citizenship in return. Her version of the Treaty is a one-way ride for Maori.  

Armed with her rewritten version of the Treaty, Ngarewa-Packer runs it over any problem that emerges. Pharmac is, and always will be, short of money as new drugs flow on to the international market. All New Zealanders who are keen to maintain their health keep an eye on the agency that buys and distributes drugs. But the crazy Maori fringe argues that the Treaty has some special relevance to Pharmac’s operation when, as David Seymour has pointed out, all people, Pakeha, Maori, and new New Zealanders from India, China and elsewhere have the same legitimate expectations of access to new drugs. 

It is this perverse use of a constantly reinterpreted Treaty that David Seymour wants to counter by defining and legislating the actual, rather than the crazy Maori fringe’s changing version that pops up when it suits them. If Ngarewa-Packer’s use of English was the same as everyone else’s then she would realise that her version of what non-Maori owe to Maori is preposterous. She would turn her attention to the many ways in which her people could improve their lives by making an effort on several fronts. 

Why are Ngarewa-Packer and the Maori Party never at the forefront of urging Maori to take more care with their diets, reduce their intake of drugs and alcohol, and cut back on smoking? Why does she never draw attention to the demonstrably violent upbringing that so many of her people inflict upon their children? And why does the Maori Party seem to possess no policies to encourage their children to attend school that is just as readily available to them as to everyone else? Educating the young is vital to their progress.

Setting aside Ngarewa-Packer’s dishonest misuse of the English language, she would quickly find more support from the rest of New Zealand if instead of eternally grizzling, she was seen herself to be making an effort to do something positive on behalf of those she claims are her people. She and they have no future in constantly trying to advance an absurd reinterpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi. But then perhaps we can count ourselves lucky that the Maori Party fetches only 3% of the total vote at election time and that, overwhelmingly, a majority of New Zealanders possessing some Maori ancestry give them a wide berth.

This article originally appeared on Bassett, Brash & Hide on 21 July, 2024.